Why Doesn't Mac Microsoft office work on ubuntu?

[john1923]

Both OSX and Ubuntu are *NIX systems. Normally (in my limited experience) if a program works on one *NIX system, then it can be made to work on ubuntu.

Is Microsoft making it difficult on purpose?

[Grenage]

Moving goalposts, and no single point of communication are undoubtedly just two of the reasons. Throw in a comparatively tiny user base, and it's all rather reasonable.

[Elfy]

Not support.

Thread moved to The Community Cafe.

[dannyboy79]

Both OSX and Ubuntu are *NIX systems. Normally (in my limited experience) if a program works on one *NIX system, then it can be made to work on ubuntu.

Is Microsoft making it difficult on purpose?

The same reason programs compiled to run on RedHat may not run in Ubuntu. It's just compatability issues of libraries and such.

Ubuntu is based on Debian, OS X to the best of my knowledge is based on a custom form of BSD.

[mips]

Both OSX and Ubuntu are *NIX systems. Normally (in my limited experience) if a program works on one *NIX system, then it can be made to work on ubuntu.

Is Microsoft making it difficult on purpose?

I suspect the issue is more related to the graphical window environment & APIs as OS X does not use X by default.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_(API)

[Lars Noodén]

You can read more about Aqua and Quartz if you are interested, but one of the main reasons as already mentioned is that OS X apps are not X-based. There is X available for OS X, so it is possible to run a great many Linux or BSD apps on OS X, but the reverse is not possible.

Then of course there is also the great history of hostility the MS has continually shown rivals, especially the FOSS community. MS Office is one of the two cash cows that it depends on and that helps tie users to MS Windows, so it is not about to let that slip. Though interestingly there are rumors of MS Office for Android. So if Android is possible, then Ubuntu should also be possible.

[MisterGaribaldi]

@OP: There is no Mac OS X "compatibility layer" for Linux (or anything else) like there is Wine/Crossover Office for Mac OS X and Linux. Therefore, you cannot run Mac OS X compiled binaries anywhere else. In theory, one could run various scripts used in Mac OS X, but other than bash-type scripts, someone would have to implement AppleScript for Linux, and I seriously don't see that happening any time soon.

Microsoft could choose to write (port, really) Office to Linux. However, the post above about possibly a port for Android notwithstanding, I seriously doubt Microsoft will ever port Office to any other platform.

The only reason there's a Mac OS X version in the first place is because of a special, long-standing relationship that Microsoft has had with Apple for nigh unto 30+ years. If Microsoft and Apple hadn't had that, there would be no MS Office for anything *but* Windows.

[Lars Noodén]

It turns out that the rumor of Android was only around for a short while. The post has since been updated with a retraction from higher up:

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-offic...13-7000005563/

MS won't give up their lock on office formats easily, but I'm surprised they're not playing to a platform that has 75% marketshare. Traditionally they've only ever gained marketshare by leveraging their desktop monopoly but this cannot be done in the smartphone and tablet markets.

Oh, well. I find LibreOffice much better anyway and it is already ported to Linux.

[mamamia88]

Simple answer because Microsoft doesn't want it too.

[KiwiNZ]

If MSFT could see a reasonable return of investment coming from porting Office to Linux they would do it, however given the Linux culture this is not achievable in the foreseeable future.

As for Android, currently MSFT is trying to establish their mobile OS in the market, vital to that would be the ability to view and update MS Office work therefore porting to Android at this point in the Win 8 Mobile lifecycle would be wrong . When or if Win8 mobile gets a reasonable market share a port to Android would be viable.